Was That Your Goal?

A client wanted to a fellow leadership mentor to make the changes in her organization to help grow the company. He’s not a change manager (and bless them, people who can drive change in any organization deserve the money they earn and more), it’s just not his jam. He would rather mentor her and her leaders to make the changes herself.

She didn’t want to. I guessed her reason was because she didn’t have the time to do it herself. I asked him what happened next. He asked her:

“Was that your goal?”

By which he meant, was it your goal to be so busy that you wouldn’t have the latitude to make changes in your business when you needed to? I thought it was a great question. I’ll just leave it here for you to use if you like.

Leadership, true leadership, isn’t just about driving change, or growing capacity, or executing goals. It’s also about growing capability, in others as well as yourself.

p.s. He got the work of mentoring the entire team, which I think will be best for the company in the long run (even if he isn’t making as much money). And it’s his jam.